At the heart of education reforms over the last decade has been the ambition to unleash opportunity for pupils of all backgrounds by raising standards in every part of the country.

In doing so, there is perhaps no more important thing to get right than making sure that every child can read proficiently, because reading ability has a direct and long-lasting impact on children’s life chances.

Prior to getting elected to Parliament, I volunteered in schools to help pupils who were struggling with their reading, and I saw for myself the enormous difference that targeted support with the right methods can make.

These methods are important because children who are below expected standards in reading struggle in all subjects, not just English, and go on to achieve lower grades across the board.

The importance of reading

Conversely, reading for enjoyment can have a greater impact on outcomes than parental income: results from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa) tests show that children from disadvantaged backgrounds who habitually read for pleasure outperform their peers in international assessments.

Simply put, teaching children to read well is levelling up in action, which is why reading has been at the core of the government’s reforms over the last 12 years.

Fluent reading is both decoding the words on the page and understanding what they mean. Therefore, a crucial step in learning to read is to master the decoding.

A recent report from University College London’s Institute of Education claimed that the government’s approach to reading is “uniformed” but ignores the robust evidence from the UK and abroad, which consistently shows that systematic phonics is the best-evidenced way to teach children how to decode - for both younger and older pupils alike.

It is a testament to this country’s success that we are now inspiring a phonics approach across the world, including Australia, Fiji, Nigeria, and a number of Arabic-speaking countries.

The value of phonics 

I am hugely grateful for the meticulous work of my predecessor in seeking the best-evidenced interventions to drive up literacy by making systematic phonics teaching part of the National Curriculum.

Since 2010, this government has embedded phonics as a component of teacher training, introduced the Phonics Screening Check and made reading a core part of Ofsted primary inspections.

All schools should now use systematic phonics to teach reading and thousands of teachers are ensuring more children are learning to read because of their daily teaching of systematic phonics in the first two years of primary school across England.

I have already seen some fantastic examples of this in action.

Victor Hugo said that “to learn to read is to light a fire, every syllable that is spelled out is a spark”. 

Since being appointed minister for schools, I have travelled the country and I have seen so many enthusiastic teachers fan this fire in students.

The results of these reforms are shining through.

Since the introduction of the Phonics Screening Check in 2012, the percentage of Year 1 pupils meeting the expected standard in reading has risen from 58 per cent to 82 per cent. For disadvantaged pupils, this figure has risen from 45 per cent to 71 per cent.  

By the end of Year 2, 91 per cent of children achieve this standard, with 100 per cent of all pupils achieving it in our very best schools, including those in the most deprived areas.

At the same time, in the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (Pirls) in 2016, England achieved its highest ever score in reading, moving from joint-10th to joint-eighth.

This study was the first international assessment results from a cohort of pupils who have experienced the changes in primary curriculum and assessment introduced since 2010 - and what it clearly showed was that achievement in the Year 1 Phonics Screening Check was the characteristic most strongly predictive of Pirls performance.

A rounded approach 

But we have always been clear that learning to decode words is just one element of becoming a fluent reader.

High-quality phonics teaching - alongside quality spoken language and exposure to books and stories to develop vocabulary - enables teachers and their pupils to focus on reading for pleasure, fluency and comprehension as they progress.

Our 34 English Hub primary schools have supported over a thousand schools to improve their teaching through phonics as well as early language and reading for pleasure.

By publishing the Reading Framework - written by experts - last year, we provided practical support to all schools looking to emulate this, helping to encourage a culture and a love of reading.

I know that some children, such as those with dyslexia, need more time to learn how to read well - but that does not mean they require different approaches.

Focussed support, plentiful opportunities for practice and appropriately paced teaching from the start of Reception are the ingredients for success for these children.

A lifelong journey 

This is just as true for adults, as The Repair Shop presenter Jay Blades showed in his BBC documentary last week - taking phonics lessons at 51 has been instrumental to the huge progress he has made.

Yet more is possible. It is my personal mission to help make us the world’s leaders in literacy - and I believe we can be, if we continue to be guided by the evidence.

Later this year, my department will set out our long-term vision to continue to improve school standards in the schools White Paper.

It will outline how we will achieve our vision of a stronger and fairer school system, so that every child gets the right education and support, in the right place, at the right time, to reach their full potential, including in reading.

Literacy should be at the heart of this vision, not only as a good in its own right - alongside numeracy, it unlocks access to the broad, knowledge-rich curriculum we want every child to enjoy.

In doing so, we will not just give children the gift and love of reading but level up and spread opportunity far and wide.

Robin Walker is the minister for school standards